Freedom House slams worrying decline in Turkish media freedom

By bne IntelliNews April 28, 2016

The deterioration in media freedom in Turkey is once again making global headlines. The Freedom House 2016 Report on press freedom argues that media freedom in Turkey is in a worrying decline, with the independent watchdog giving the country’s media a “not free” grade.

Turkey ranks 156th out of 199 countries around the world, and is among the countries that suffered the largest declines over 2015, along with Macedonia, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Yemen, France, Serbia, Burundi and Bangladesh.

Freedom House marked Turkey’s press freedom score for 2016 as 71 out of 100, with 100 being the worst. Turkey, which has been a candidate to join the EU since 1999, fell from “partly free” to “not free” in 2014.

The Freedom House report coincided with the latest report of Reporters Without Borders released last week, “2016 World Press Freedom Index”, which also placed Turkish media among the most restricted in the world, and ranked the country at 151 out of 180 countries, two points below the previous year.